


Remember us to life

by perfidious_snatched



Series: This Much I Know [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Platonic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-10-13 05:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20577122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfidious_snatched/pseuds/perfidious_snatched
Summary: The Doctor and Donna are soulmates. It's mostly platonic. They understand this. The rest of the universe has difficulty with it.(Aka ficlets based on a Buzzfeed list about opposite-sex best friends part II.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back three years later with another set of silly between-the-adventure ficlets about how Doc and Donna are deep and enduring soulmates (platonic? romantic? both? neither? make of it what you will) throughout time and space. Shout out to Buzzfeed for recycling the same content with slight differences every six months for providing some new prompts. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who is still reading and commenting on my old stuff! It really makes a difference, and has made me want to get back to these two for a while. :)

##  **1\. You've fully accepted that nobody will ever understand your dynamic.**

The Doctor is woken from a very pleasant, unusually lengthy sleep by shouting. 

“What the hell is he doing here?!” 

“You said he could stay!”

“In the house, not in your bedroom!” 

He identifies one speaker as Sylvia Noble and the second as Donna, and now that he’s slightly roused he realises he doesn’t immediately recognise the lilac pattern of the duvet, nor the photograph of Donna and Wilf on the table next to him.

“Donna Eileen Noble, so help me god, if you don’t let me into that room,” Sylvia bellows. 

“How old am I?” he hears Donna yell, and then: “Get_ up_, you great Martian lump!” hissed in his ear. 

“What the hell—”

“We fell asleep! Get up!” 

Before his sluggish brain can make sense of the situation, he’s wrenched up by the shoulder, still half-asleep. Donna’s unsuccessfully trying to stuff his limp arm into his suit jacket where it’s become tangled. 

“Oh for the love of—” she exclaims, throwing her hands up. “Make yourself presentable!” 

* * * *

They’d landed in front of the Noble household on a balmy July evening. Donna is in remarkably good spirits for an impending visit with her mother. She has gifts from far away galaxies to share (when her mum asks, she’ll say she got them _ abroad _) and she figures this will appease her mother’s temper and perhaps distract her from her general distaste for the Doctor. 

A distaste that is not completely unwarranted, if she’s being honest, but is nonetheless irritating.

And so they pass a pleasant evening. Donna manages to ignore her mother’s acerbic comments and even compliments her rose bushes. The Doctor doesn’t break anything. Wilf and Sylvia bid them goodnight around 10 and after a game of Solitaire somehow devolves into near violence, Donna suggests they watch a film instead. 

Which is how they end up in her bedroom, watching When Harry Met Sally for the 14th time. She’s feeling cosy and warm and peaceful and she keeps stealing looks at him. 

“I can see you, you know,” he says, eyes on the screen. She rolls her eyes. 

“D’you think it’s true?” she asks. 

“Hmm?” 

“D’you think it’s true that men and women can’t be friends?” 

He finally does turn, expression inscrutable. After a long moment he says: “Are we not friends?” 

“Of course we are, you plum,” she says. “But no one else seems to think so. Or rather... they think we ought to be more than friends.” 

He gives a little shrug and turns back to the screen. She supposes to him it really is that easy. He’s not bogged down by generations of conditioning about what men and women are supposed to be to each other. He’s not even really a man, she thinks, he just looks like one. It’s just her human brain which fits him into that neat box.

She watches him watching, hears him give a little gasp when Harry and Sally meet again on New Years Eve even though they’ve seen it so many times before, and feels a potent burst of fondness for him. Whatever other people think, she knows how she feels about him. He’s the love of her life, in an odd way. Not the way she was expecting, but it’s so much deeper than anything she was expecting. 

He’s noticed her watching him again. “What is it?” he asks, his lips quirking.

“Just... nothing,” she says, and settles on his shoulder. He slips an arm around her shoulders and she lets her hand gentle on his chest so she can feel the soothing double beat of his hearts. Her eyes flutter. 

“Of course men and women can be friends,” he says, after a while. She’s almost asleep so she half thinks she’s dreaming it. “Or—” he pauses, considering, “—Time Lords and women. I reckon Time Lords and women… can be best friends.” He gives her a little squeeze and out of half-closed eyelids she thinks she sees him smiling down at her. 

* * * *

“Are you two sleeping together?” Sylvia shrieks, the pitch of her voice approaching dog-whistle tones. 

“No!” shouts Donna at the exact same time that the Doctor says: “Yes.”

“Doctoooor!” Donna yells.

“Donnaaaa,” the Doctor says, quite calmly. 

“We are not sleeping together!”

He gives her a confused look and she makes a strangled noise in her throat. “You are _ not _this dim!” 

The penny drops as the human euphemism finds its place in his brain. “Ah,” the Doctor says. “Bit slow in the morning. Don’t usually sleep this much.” He grins sheepishly. 

Sylvia, having finally shoved her way inside the room, is glaring between them, absolutely scarlet. She seems at a loss for words. 

“Right,” the Doctor says, turning to her. “Right, see, there’s been a bit of a misunderstand—” 

“OUT!” she bellows. “OUT of my house!” 

The Doctor doesn’t need telling twice. He grabs Donna’s hand and drags her, still pyjama-clad, down the stairs, out the door, and straight back to the TARDIS, with Sylvia’s shrieks echoing in his ears. 

They collapse on the jumpseat, chests heaving.

“That went well,” the Doctor comments mildly. 

Donna gives him a look. 

“Well,” he concedes with a shrug, “no worse than usual.” 

Donna’s still glaring at him, though her lips are twitching and he thinks she might be trying not to laugh. Then he notices she’s still barefooted, their flight from the Noble home having left no time for her to put on proper footwear. The sight of her pale feet poking out of her pyjama trousers—the absurdity of the whole situation, really—strikes him in one fell swoop and he gives into the impulse to laugh.

For a moment she stares at him, incredulous, and then she starts giggling and before he knows it, they’re both clutching their sides and he can hardly breathe for laughing. 

When they finally catch their breath, Donna is wiping away tears of mirth. 

“I think she just meant for you to leave,” she points out, belatedly.

“Never quite get it right, do we?” he sighs. 

She smiles fondly at him and he thinks about how he loves that little quirk of her lips, the smattering of freckles over her nose, her bolshy laughter. At the end of the day, he thinks, she’s all he needs. Someone to laugh with. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are getting stupider already and I'm making no apologies!!!!!

##  **2\. You have faces and inside jokes that wouldn't fly with anyone else.**

At the moment, shouty men with big guns are high on Donna’s list of annoyances.

They’re not at the top. At the top are people who stand on the left side of the escalator, tourists, and queue-jumpers. 

But she has to admit shouty men with big guns are ascending rapidly. 

“Any sort of a plan?” she asks the Doctor. They’re pressed together back to back and it’s all she can do not to tremble with fear. 

“Working on it!” The Doctor squeaks, and then turns to face their pursuers. “Right, we’ll come with you. Go on, take us to your boss. We won’t struggle.”

“We won’t?” she whispers. 

“No we won’t, because we fancy our heads attached to our shoulders,” he says out of the corner of his mouth. 

Donna’s eyes widen but she hardly has time to consider the possibility of losing her head before she’s shoved rudely between the shoulder blades with the muzzle of aforementioned big gun and she and the Doctor are frogmarched down the dank, sloping corridor. 

“How ‘bout now?” she squeaks. 

“You know I don’t work well under pressure!” he shoots back.

“Don’t work well under—for the love of— _ it’s in your bloody job description to work well under pressure! _ It’s kind of your... thing.” 

“Don’t worry,” he grits out through his teeth. “I’ll think of something, I always do.”

“Oh because you’re so clever,” she retorts.

“Yes I  _ am  _ so clever!” 

“SILENCE,” shouts one of the shouty men. Donna rolls her eyes. 

They’ve arrived in a massive, airy room. It’s all very ostentatious with romanesque pillars and an elaborate stone throne. A tiny bald humanoid sits atop it. He looks exactly like Donna’s uncle Gary if her uncle Gary were bright green and brandishing a spear. 

Donna is suddenly forcibly reminded of the time her uncle Gary had chased the Doctor out of his garden with a hose, after the Doctor had attended a party with her and accidentally trod on his prized petunias. She'd nearly laughed herself sick at the sight of him at the TARDIS threshold, absolutely drenched. 

She can’t help it. She bursts out laughing. The fact that it’s such an inappropriate time to be laughing makes her laugh even harder, until she’s doubled over, clutching her stomach. 

Everyone stares at her. 

“What is happening to the red one?” asks the green humanoid. “Is it convulsing? Why does it make this noise?” 

“Erm… Donna,” the Doctor mumbles, eyes darting back and forth between her and their captors. “Now’s not a great time.” 

“G-gary,” she chokes out. “He looks exactly like Gary. Remember—” she’s doubles over laughing again, attempting to catch her breath, “—remember the petunias?” 

A little burble of laughter escapes the Doctor, and he claps his hand over his mouth, his lips quivering. It’s too late. He’s notorious for catching the giggles. Donna’s absolutely lost it, clutching her sides. She snorts involuntarily, and it makes him laugh even harder. 

“Is this some sort of psychic attack?” the green throne-man asks, covering his ears. “What is this vile noise?” 

“That’s right!” says the Doctor, gasping. “That’s right, you’d better stand back or this– or… or  _ worse  _ will come your way!” 

He grabs Donna’s hand and backs them toward the exit. 

They laugh all the way back to the TARDIS. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More unabashed fluff in which nothing happens but that's really what we've all signed on for with this series so it's fine.

##  **3\. You don't have to deal with any expectation to look nice while hanging out with them because you know they won't give a shit.**

Lord Reginald Frinton-Prior, the seventh Earl of the Shimmering Suns is staring at Donna.

The Doctor doesn’t blame him. She’s dressed to the nines, in a sky blue gown which contrasts beautifully with her peaches-and-cream complexion. And she stands out among the crowd with her shock of red hair which has been artfully piled atop her head in such a way that the Doctor suspects several laws of physics have been broken. Not that he’s noticed, or generally notices things like this, but she looks divine.

She nudges the Doctor. “Who’s that?” she asks, surreptitiously. 

“That’s Lord Reginald Frinton-Prior, seventh Earl of the Shimmering Suns,” says the Doctor. 

Donna gives him a look like she thinks he’s having her on. He blinks at her impassively. “Oh come off it,” she says.

“What?”

“That is not what he’s called.”

“It is too!” the Doctor intones. 

“Nobody’s called that. Lord Reginald Frumpy-Prawn, Earl of my shimmering left arse–”

“Reg!” the Doctor cuts over her smoothly as the Earl materialises beside them. “Good to see you again!” 

Donna chokes a little and spins around with a pasted on smile. 

“Doctor,” he says, beaming, arms spread wide. “So pleased you could come along. And just who is your spectacular companion?”

Donna has just taken a rather large sip of her champagne to hide her discomfort and swallows heavily with a grimace. “Erm… Donna. Donna Noble.” 

She offers her hand and Lord Frinton-Prior takes it, kissing it with an ostentatious bow. The Doctor snorts at the gesture and hides it extremely poorly. 

“May I steal you for a dance?” he asks. 

Donna shoots the Doctor a panicked look as Lord Frinton-Prior leads her away before she can refuse and the Doctor gives her a jaunty little wave. Alas, enjoying each other’s mild discomfort is the bedrock upon which their friendship is built. 

* * * *

Half an hour later, the Doctor is feeling a little bit less smug.

After several lively dances during which Donna had intermittently glared and made threatening gestures at him behind the Earl’s back, they had settled in for something slower, and then another one. Now the Earl is holding Donna close and he’s got his hand just a bit too low on her back, and it’s all going terribly for the Doctor. The Earl is good-looking in that effortless square-jawed way the Doctor’s never quite able to manage and aristocrats in this star system are notoriously slimy. Lord Frinton-Prior can find his own gobby ginger to kidnap. Donna is taken. 

As if on cue, glass shatters, and someone screams. 

The Doctor grabs Donna and then they’re saving the day, like they always do. 

* * * *

Many hours and a minor revolution later, they are back in the TARDIS. 

Donna has excused herself for a shower, and the Doctor is fussing with the television attempting to select a film for the evening. Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter. Whatever he picks, she’ll fall asleep within 40 seconds of the opening titles. It’s one of his favourite routines.

Eventually, Donna materialises, barefaced and damp and wrapped in her fluffiest dressing gown. Her hair has gone dark red with the moisture and she looks bright-eyed and content as she curls up in her customary spot on his left side. He watches her fondly while she gets comfortable, pulling a ratty blanket over both of them. 

“What’re you staring at, Martian?” she asks, not unkindly. 

He considers not answering, but then he gives her a shrug and says: “You look nice.” 

She snorts, and shakes her head and goes back to nesting.

“What is it?” 

“Nothing,” she says. “It’s nothing.” 

He’s silent, waiting for her to continue. 

“It’s just… I spent three hours getting ready tonight, you know? I thought I looked… that is, I felt...” she trails off, looking desperately uncomfortable. “I felt nice. I liked my dress and all. And not a peep from you, not. But _ now _you say I look nice?” 

He studies her face carefully. There’s her customary bluster, sure, her usual wry humour; but underneath, just a little frisson of insecurity that he kicks himself for not noticing earlier. 

He considers her for a moment longer. “To me,” he says simply. “You always look nice. More than nice.”

“That is _ such _a line.” 

“It’s not,” he says. “It’s really not.” 

She doesn’t say anything but she winds her arms around his elbow and nestles into his shoulder and he feels warm and safe in a profound way he can’t quite describe. From the way she clutches at his arm, her breathing growing slow and steady next to him as she falls asleep, he suspects she feels much the same way.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This sprouted some legs and got a little darker than I intended. Sorry!

##  **4\. You swear like sailors because you don't have a filter with each other.**

Donna has an absolutely filthy mouth. 

Initially, the Doctor is shocked by it. Perhaps it’s some remnant of stodgy Time Lord reverence for decorum that is written into his bones—which he’s never much cared for before—but he’s always been a bit arbitrarily pearl-clutchy about bad language. Sensing her pilot’s reticence, the TARDIS helpfully supplies a swear filter which works out just fine for centuries until Donna goes on a hair-curlingly profane tirade against a dictator and then just when he’s feeling all self-righteous and proud of her she turns round on him and brandishes a finger in his face and screeches, “_Why the flip can’t I flipping say flip_?” 

And so the Doctor asks the TARDIS to bin the filter and is never on the receiving end of Donna’s rage again. Mostly. For the rest of that week, at least.

Now, though, he senses that his luck may have run out. She’s pacing in the dungeon they’re in, looking like a caged tiger. 

“I can’t believe them,” she grumbles. “I can’t believe you!”

“Me?!”

“Would it _ kill _you to do a bit of research before we go bumbling out onto a planet where ginger hair is supposedly some kind of bad omen?” 

She has a point, he has to admit. They hadn’t been on the planet five seconds when they’d been arrested and unceremoniously thrown in jail. They’d taken his screwdriver off him and Donna’s gone absolutely batty locked up. She’s been pacing for the past hour, her grumbling sounding increasingly dire. 

“Oi!” Donna hollers, rattling the bars. “You can’t just leave us here!” 

“Donna,” he groans. “Don’t antagonise them.”

“I’ll antagonise you in a minute,” she growls and returns to her pacing. 

A couple minutes later, they hear footsteps and two enormous guards appear. They come up to the door and begin undoing the elaborate locks, entering the cell. 

“About bloody time!” Donna says, but the words are barely out of her mouth before they roughly drag her out of the cell. The Doctor tries to grab for her but they push him aside with so much force he hits the opposite wall.

“What are you doing to her?” he bellows. 

They don’t respond, dragging her away down the corridor. He grips the bars until his knuckles go white as Donna’s screams reverberate in his ears. 

* * * *

The Doctor feels his mind going blank with panic. He has to find her. He has to save her and get them out of here before they do whatever it is they do to transgressors on this planet. He curses himself for not being more diligent. This _ is _his fault, no matter what he’d said to her. He’d sworn to care for her. He’d sworn to Wilf he’d keep her safe. 

Frustrated and driven mad with worry, he hardly notices the sound of footsteps approaching. Just one guard returns, dragging Donna with him. They can’t have been gone more than fifteen minutes but Donna looks defeated, her face red and streaked with tears. He thinks he sees blood at her hairline and the thought of them hurting her while he’s been stuck here makes his stomach roil with nausea. 

The Doctor makes to spring forward and but before he can process what’s happening, the guard pins Donna against the wall by her hair. She struggles desperately, fresh tears springing to her eyes. 

“If you move,” the guard says calmly, turning to the Doctor. “I will snap her neck.” 

“Please,” he begs, hands held aloft. “Please, I’ll do anything. Please just let her go.” 

“Make her change it back,” the guard says.

“Change what back?” 

The guard twists his hand where its fisted in her hair and Donna whimpers. “_Change it back_.” 

Something clicks in the Doctor’s brain. Red is a bad omen on this planet where they can change colour at will. “She can’t change it,” he cries. “She’s not the same species as you. She can’t change it.” 

The guard looks between the Doctor and Donna coldly, as if he is deciding whether the Doctor is telling the truth. Then, without warning, he throws Donna to the ground. He steps over her where she lays, trembling at his feet, aiming a swift kick at her ribs almost as an afterthought. 

Something in the Doctor snaps. He launches forward before he realises what he’s doing, catching the guard off balance so they both stumble back into the wall. His hands go around the man’s throat before he can stop himself. His vision has gone scarlet. He wants to strangle the guard with his bare hands for touching her. He wants to make the guard feel her pain, to make him feel as small as he’s made her. There’s a funny rushing sound in his ears that drowns everything else out and he feels as though his body is acting of its own accord, galvanised by rage. 

And then a plaintive voice that sounds very distant makes him pause. “Doctor,” Donna says quietly. “Doctor, you’re killing him.” 

Somewhere in the still-rational part of the Doctor’s mind, beyond the red mist, he can see that she’s right. The guard’s eyes are bulging, his face turning scarlet. 

“Doctor,” Donna says again. “Please. You can stop now.” 

* * * * 

The Doctor’s grip loosens.

The guard slips to the ground, coughing and sputtering and cursing. The Doctor stands over him, chest heaving like a bellows. He’s shaking all over, his eyes black, expression curled into an ugly snarl. Donna hardly recognises him. 

The guard begins to scuttle away, half crawling as if to put as much space between himself and the Doctor as possible. He’s still coughing, fingerprints quickly purpling on his neck. He hardly makes it a few feet when the Doctor grabs him again, this time by the collar, dragging him upward so that they’re face to face again. 

“We are leaving this planet,” he says, his voice thick with an intensity she’s never heard before. “And if you touch her again—if you so much as _ look _at her—I will rip your throat out.” 

Donna believes him. 

* * * * 

Back at the TARDIS, Donna allows the Doctor to fuss over her injuries for exactly seven excruciating minutes before she excuses herself to shower. She desperately needs to get the stench of the dungeon off of her, to wash the entire day off her skin. 

“Do you need... help?” he asks, shuffling uncomfortably. 

She snorts. “I’ve been showering on my own for three decades Spaceman, I think I’ve got it sorted.”

Now though, under the spray, she lets everything wash over her. Purple bruises are already blooming on her ribs, her scalp tender where he’d pulled hair out. She has a small laceration on her hairline that stings like hell even if the Doctor had proclaimed it superficial. She feels beaten down, exhausted. Her muscles ache. She wants to sleep for a week. 

She’d never been so frightened as when they dragged her away from the Doctor. She’s seen and experience horrible things in their travels. She’s seen humanity at its worst and faced her own mortality more times than she can count. And yet, she realises, as long as he’s with her, she has an anchor. He’s the bright spot on her horizon, wiley and clever, always with a plan. She has so much faith in him, in his ability to get them home safely. She’s terrified when they’re separated. 

And yet now, the thing that scares her most is _ him. _

She pictures again his dead-eyed stare as he’d throttled the guard and can’t help the sob that escapes. _ Inhuman, _ she thinks, _ that’s the word for it. _No ghost of his sense of humour or his usual irreverence in the face of danger. No babbling about second chances or long-winded melodramatic speeches. Just rage, absolute and seething and terrifying. 

She lets herself feel it all for a moment, crumpling to the floor of the shower, her back heaving with sobs. Being frightened of aliens, she can take. Being roughed up a bit, tossed in a dungeon—that’s par for the course. But being frightened of her best friend is almost too much for her to handle. She feels alone like never before. 

When the water starts to turn cold—which she suspects is the TARDIS’s unsubtle hint, because there’s no such thing as running out of hot water on board—she finally picks herself up and turns off the shower. She wraps herself up in her dressing gown, tying it securely around her waist.

He’s sitting on the end of her bed when she emerges from her bathroom, like she expected he would be. He always looks a little bit discomfited in her bedroom, like he’s worried about taking up too much space in her little sanctuary, but now he looks particularly out-of-place among the homely throw pillows and veritable mountain of blankets, in his dirtied suit and trainers. 

She sits down next to him and reaches for his hand where it sits atop the duvet and hears him let out a shuddering sigh. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Please don’t,” she says, squeezing his fingers. 

“How are you feeling? Are you hurting?”

“Not so much now.” 

They lapse into silence, and she can feel tension radiating off him in waves. 

“I thought you were going to kill him,” she says finally. “The guard.” 

She hears him suck in a sharp breath. 

“I was,” he says. “I was going to kill him.”

“Why?”

“He hurt you,” he says, simply. 

Donna gives a choking sob and curls in on herself. Before she knows it, he’s wrapped around her, smoothing a soothing hand over her back. “Please don’t cry,” he says, and he sounds on the verge of tears himself. “Please. I can’t bear it.” 

“You’re better than them,” she whimpers. “You _ have _to be better than them.”

His eyes clench shut and he presses his forehead to hers. “I know. _ I know_.”

They stay there like that, for a moment. Donna shakily collects herself, taking huge, heaving breaths. She can feel him tremble. When she opens her eyes again, he’s looking at her with so much affection and worry, that she can hardly picture the stranger he’d been before. 

“I was… it was like I was out of control of my body,” he says. “But then I heard you.” His eyes are warm, almost hopeful. “And you stopped me.” 

He takes her hand tightly his. “Thank you,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “Thank you for stopping me.” 

She smiles weakly. “Thank you for stopping.” 

She thinks one day, maybe he’ll heal a little; but for now and for as long as he’ll have her she’s there to temper the oncoming storm.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post JE, pre fixit. 
> 
> Please note: some references to suicidal ideation in this chapter. Nothing explicit.

**5\. You can count on them to have an honest opinion about your life choices when no one else does.**

After she’s gone, the Doctor feels aimless. 

He goes through the motions. He follows a distress call, waits for the familiar ember of excitement at the pit of his stomach that precedes adventure. It never comes. 

He saves an entire world that day, and all he can think of is her, how she would have looked at him, equal parts proud and exasperated that he’d nearly sacrificed himself again; how her hand would have felt in his, how desperately he wants her there to share the moment with him. 

He thinks the TARDIS must sense his despair because when he sets her to random, she brings him to Fulham. If he can’t see her, he can at least inhabit the same time and space as her. 

The dreary weather reflects his mood as he strolls aimlessly next to the Thames. He thinks about what it would be like to jump. He wouldn’t die. He’s much too hardy for that—pesky Time Lord disposition and all—and it’s not all that far of a drop. But maybe it would give him a little jolt. Maybe it’s what he needs. He’s hypnotised by the gently swirling eddies of the river below. The murky water looks oddly inviting. Maybe he’d feel something. 

He has one leg halfway over the barrier without quite realising what he’s doing when a voice interrupts him. 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, mate,” someone says. “It’ll be a big to do. Loads of paperwork for some poor civil servant.” 

He knows it’s her before he turns but seeing her still takes his breath away. She looks nearly the same, hair a little longer, with some new lines in her face he doesn’t recognise. Smile lines, he hopes. Kind eyes just the same. 

He feels as if he can’t draw a full breath. He feels like crying. 

It must show on his face because she looks a little nervous and says, “Steady on, I was just joking.” 

He sits for a moment longer, straddling the barrier. Finally, he says, “I wasn’t going to jump.”

She gives him a look and he knows she sees straight through him. “Odd choice for spot to rest, then.”

When he doesn’t respond, she’s suddenly brisk. “Come on, then. You look like you could use a pint.” And she turns and heads back toward the high street. 

Helplessly, without being aware of instructing his feet to do so, he follows her. 

They end up in the pub at the corner. He orders a tea at the bar and she has a lager and she pays for both of them without a word. They sit in the corner booth, listening to the rain lash at the grimy windows. She doesn’t say anything for a while; just watches him silently over the rim of her pint glass, her expression inscrutable. 

Finally she says, “Do I know you from somewhere?”

His eyes widen. “No, no, no. Just one of those faces, me.” 

She squints. “Okay…” 

He can tell she doesn’t quite believe him so he hastens to change the subject. “Thanks for… erm… that is… got a bit caught up in my thoughts earlier. Didn’t know what I was doing, really.” 

She gives him a nonchalant half-shrug. “Not a problem.” 

Silence falls between them again. She's looking at him expectantly and he knows she wants him to continue. He wants nothing more than to spill his soul to her, but he’s painfully aware he’s playing with fire just by speaking with her. 

“I had this… friend,” he begins carefully. “A really good friend. A proper best mate. I lost her. She had to… go.” 

He looks at her, watches her eyes go soft and sympathetic, and desperately wants her to hug him. It’s such a familiar expression. 

“I’m sorry,” she says gently.

“It’s okay,” he says, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Well actually no, it’s not okay, really. I’m not…. I did some things… it’s all gone wrong without her.” He feels his voice get thick, his throat tightening. He’s not going to cry in front of her. 

“Why did she have to go?” she asks. 

“I made her go. For her own safety. I was bad for her. I’m… sometimes what I do is dangerous and in the end it got her. She would’ve died if she didn’t leave me. She had to go.”

“Did she want to?”

“What?”

“Did she want to go?” 

He looks away, anywhere but into the familiar blue-gold of her eyes, which are somehow all-too-knowing even now. He swallows hard. “She didn’t want to leave me. She begged me not to go. I… forced her. I made her do it. I don’t regret it because I know it means she’s still alive now, but I just… I can’t go on without her. I can’t do it. I keep making mistakes. And I deserve what’s coming to me.”

“Don’t take this wrong way,” Donna says, “But that’s fucking stupid.” 

The Doctor stares at her, mouth ajar. “How else could I possibly take that?” 

Donna soldiers on, ignoring his shocked expression. “You made a mistake, it sounds like. You didn’t listen to your friend, what she wanted, or needed. But the self-flagellation is… not necessary. Not productive. Just self-indulgent.”

“_What_?”

She huffs out a sigh. “Look, mate. It sounds like you really loved this woman and you’ve wronged her and that’s driven you a bit bonkers. Understandable, genuinely. But all this ‘_I deserve to suffer’ _rubbish? I don’t know anything about her but if it were me, I would hate to see my best friend moping around because of me. Don’t get me wrong,” she says, with a little flick of her hair. “A bit of moping would be warranted. But let’s not get all melodramatic and self-sacrificial.” 

“Right,” the Doctor says, utterly taken aback. “Okay.” 

“Surely she wouldn’t _ want _ you to fling yourself into the Thames?” 

“I s’pose not,” he says. 

“So then… don’t,” she says, with a little shrug, like it’s that easy. “Do something to honour her. Something she’d want.” 

She looks at him, completely guilelessly, and finally he manages to fully close his mouth. She’s spectacular, really. The way that—even now—she manages to cut through all his nonsense to tell him off. And somehow in the process, she’s made him feel a little better. 

“You know if I really were going to off myself, this would be a thoroughly unsympathetic pep talk,” he says. “You should definitely not go into psychotherapy. Or crisis management.” 

“You won’t,” she says, lips quirking. “And I won’t.”


	6. Chapter 6

##  **6\. You always support each other even if your actions are questionable.**

It’s one of his more brilliant escape plans, in his humble opinion. 

After the Doctor had been accused of treason on a remote planet in the Sarsan solar system, he’d been taken away from Donna and locked in a cell. Donna, they’d assured her, bowing smarmily to her in a way that made her smirk widely at him, was free to go. By coincidence, there was a reclusive member of the royal family by her name, and she had diplomatic immunity. He, on the other hand, was a scoundrel. He’d be locked up. His trial was next Tuesday. 

He wasn’t entirely convinced Donna was coming to rescue him. Donna played her role a little bit too well. After making sure he wouldn’t be harmed while he was imprisoned—and indeed, Sarsanians were a bumbling but not violent bunch—she assured his captors that she’d come back for him next week when his trial was decided and she had no need for him before then. Then she had demanded they fetch her tea and cakes. She was enjoying being a duchess a tiny bit too much, in his opinion. 

He had voiced this, upon which she’d reminded him that he’d briefly ascended the throne in 42nd century New New New New America during which time he’d used his kingly powers to make her give him back rubs. And then she’d yelled, “Take him away!” pointing a dramatic finger toward the dungeons. He wondered if the Sarsanians also noticed how hard she was trying not to laugh. 

So now, the Doctor was alone, as Donna had sauntered off to god-knows-where to enjoy her newfound privileges. So rude, really. 

He’d been nosing around his cell, trying to find something to escape with. There were several crates in the corner with a tangy, familiar smell he couldn’t quite identify, a length of rope, and several large sealed barrels on the opposite corner. Good old Sarsanians. Always supplying just the thing for an escape attempt. They haven’t even taken his screwdriver. They’d be adorable and fun, really, if they weren’t so keen on rules. 

He's considering trying his luck at the barred windows high above and has nearly scaled the first two barrels, when quite suddenly, something clicks in his brain. The tangy, metallic smell... is gunpowder. 

“I am thick,” he says aloud. “The thickest.” In his head, Donna agrees with him. 

He leaps to the floor gracefully, picks himself up off the ground when he falls over, and darts over the corner with the crates. All he needs to do is rig up a little fuse that will allow him to stand a safe distance away while he detonates the gunpowder and blows the wall down. His eyes fall to the length of rope, and he grips his sonic screwdriver in his pocket. Check and check. 

He’s midway through hauling one of the crates toward the door and appropriately setting up the rope when he hears footsteps down the corridor. 

“I’m so sorry,” a familiar voice is saying. “He just doesn’t know any better.” 

Donna appears a moment later as the door swings open.

“Donna!” he exclaims. 

“Doctor,” she says, “I’m here to get you out. Quickly, quickly, I’ve told them you’re my concubine and—hang on, what the _ hell _ are you doing?” 

He realises belatedly the scene is a little damning. His screwdriver is held aloft with a little flame on the end and he’s holding up the rope. 

“Were you… going to blow up the door?” 

“Erm… no,” he says, about as unconvincingly as he could have done. 

She pauses for a long moment, eyes darting between the flame and the door. Finally she says: “Do it.” 

“_What?! _—wait hang on did you just say I was your concu—”

“Do it," she says again. 

"But Donna," he says, "the door's unlocked now. We could just walk out—"

_"Do it."_

She has that mischievous little gleam in her eyes, the one he loves. She grins at him. He can’t help it. He beams back at her, grabs her hand and drags her to the opposite corner, and lights the fuse. 

Nothing happens. 

Donna gives him a look, walks over to one of the crates where the Doctor has shoved the rope in between slats and gives an almighty sniff. 

“Pepper, Doctor,” she says. “It’s black pepper.” 

She’ll never let him live this down, he’s sure of it. 

A little bit later on, the Sarsanians realise that Donna is not actually a reclusive duchess and they’re being chased back toward the TARDIS, hand-in-hand, per usual. Donna is breathing hard but manages to say, “Your grand plan really was just to blow up the wall, then?”

The Doctor laughs, breathless. “And you were really going to just stand there and let me blow up a wall?” 

Donna grins. “Did you really confuse black pepper for gunpowder?”

“Did you really call me your _ concubine_?!” 

Donna skids to a halt in front of the TARDIS, fumbling for the key around her neck. “Right,” she says, blushing. “Enough bad ideas to go around. Let’s just call it even, shall we?” 

And they do.


End file.
